Thursday, May 14, 2009

Not long ago I went back and re-watched the first season of Heroes, and reviewed it here and here. In my previous reviews of this work, I pointed out the potential and well execution of basically a long, comic book on the small screen.

Season 2 unfortunately does not learn from any of the mistakes it made in the first year, coupled with the writer’s strike of 2007, the season ends up truncated, and unable to fully correct itself before the end.

Unlike the first season, a shift occurs between the minor characters and the main characters in the show. Unlike with the first season where Claire and Peter’s stories were obviously the central focus, the storyline is fragmented, with competing, and largely unrelated storylines competing for airtime in practically every episode. They all get their time, and unfortunately that leaves little progress per episode across the board.

Again, with this season some of the characters are heroes, some are villains. The main story arc of this season deals with a deadly virus, and the possibility that it will be unleashed on the people with special powers, or even the general population. The story still revolves around the Petrelli Brothers, Peter and Nathan; Claire, a teenager who can heal herself; Matt Parkman, a man who can read people’s thoughts; Mohinder Suresh, a doctor living in New York; and Niki, a resident of Las Vegas. David Anders appears as Adam Monroe, and Zachary Quinto returns as Sylar. Dania Ramirez appears as a new character, Maya Herrera, on the run for killing countless people in her home country.

I think the major downfall of the second season was keeping the character Sylar, the main villain of the first season, around after season one ended. With Sylar, the entire "travel across Mexico and the southern US" for nearly the entire season was almost absurd, and unfortunately introduced us to the Niki and Paulo of Heroes (pointless new character from Lost), Maya and her brother. This undermined the character and served to remove whatever menacing aura he had.

At best the season should have seen the return of Sylar at the end of the season. Adam, the character which who was being set up as the big bad guy of the season, should have had the focus. The entire thing became just far too crowded for its own good.

What really sold the show for me in the first season begins to falter and get stale. Hiro, a character I loved starts showing signs that the writers just don’t *get* it. His character is overly enthusiastic, and shows many lapses in judgment that are unlike how the character was presented in season one. The biggest failure of the season was the inclusion of the Jessica-Micca storyline. Season one dragged their storyline on far too long, and this season expands on this, with Micca moving in with his cousins. Their story arc is perhaps the worst of the entire show, and I can only thank the writer’s strike for killing it off.